New study: Food like cocaine for obese people.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The same brain circuits are involved when obese people fill their stomachs as when drug addicts think about drugs, a finding that suggests overeating and addiction may be linked, U.S. researchers reported on Monday.

The finding may help in creating better treatments for obesity -- a growing problem in the United States and elsewhere.

"We wanted to know why, when people are already full, why people are still eating a lot," said Dr. Gene-Jack Wang of Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York.

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The volunteers were all genuinely hungry -- they had been fasting for 16 or 17 hours when the PET scans were run. The stimulator succeeded in making them feel less hungry, Wang said.

But the surprise was in which brain circuits it used in doing so.

"It was very similar to a study on when cocaine abusers, when they think of cocaine, they have a craving for cocaine," he said.

"This new pathway should be explored in further studies to determine if there are any implications for treating or preventing obesity."

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Interesting that the pathways activated were similar to those of coke addicts.